About Christmas his edition of Les Liaisons Dangereuses was taking shape in his brain with its scheme for initial letters to each of the 170 letters, and ten full-page illustrations, and a frontispiece to each of the two volumes; but it was to get no further than Beardsley’s enthusiasm. At this Yuletide appeared The Book of Fifty Drawings, in which for the first time were seen the Ali Baba in the Wood, the Bookplate of the Artist, and the Atalanta in Calydon with the hound. This book holds the significant revelation of Beardsley’s own estimate of his achievement up to this time, for he chose his fifty best drawings; it holds therefore the amusing confession that he did not always know what was his best work. It is interesting to note that Beardsley includes the mediocre and commonplace Merlin in a circle, yet omits some of his finest designs. It is all the more interesting in that Beardsley not only laid a ban on a considerable amount of his early work, but made Smithers give him his solemn oath and covenant that he would never allow to be published, if he could prevent it, certain definite drawings—he particularly forbade anything from the Scrap Book then belonging to Ross, for he shrewdly suspected Ross’s malicious thwarting of every endeavour on Beardsley’s behalf to exchange good, and even late drawings, for these early commonplaces and inadequacies. And Smithers to my certain knowledge had in my presence solemnly vowed to prevent such publication. When Beardsley was dead, it is only fair to Smithers to say that he did resist the temptation until Ross basely overpersuaded him to the scandalous betrayal. However that was not as yet.... Evidently, though the fifty drawings were selected and decided upon in September, Beardsley changed one October drawing for something thrown out, for the October Ave atque Vale appears; and it may be that the Atalanta in Calydon with the hound, sometimes called Diana, and the Beardsley Bookplate together with the Self-portrait silhouette that makes the Finis to the Iconography, may have been done as late, and replaced other drawings. Beardsley dedicated the book of his collected achievement to the man who had stood by him in fair weather and in foul from the very beginning—Joseph Pennell. It was the least he could do.
ATALANTA—WITH THE HOUND
BEARDSLEY’S BOOK PLATE
December had begun with more hope for Beardsley—his lung gave him little or no trouble; he “suffers from Boscombe more than anything else.” And even though a sharp walk left him breathless, he felt he could scarcely call himself an invalid now, but the walk made him nervous. He is even looking forward to starting housekeeping in London again, with his sister; he hungers for town; indeed would be “abjectly thankful for the smallest gaieties & pleasures in town.” And were it not that he was nervous about taking walks abroad, he was becoming quite hopeful again when—taking a walk about New Year’s Eve he suddenly broke down; he “had some way to walk in a dreadful state” before he could get any help. And he began the New Year with the bitter cry: “So it all begins over again. It’s so disheartening.” He had “collapsed in all directions,” and it was decided to take him to some more bracing place as soon as he was fit to be moved.
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So ended the great Savoy period! Beardsley’s triumphs seemed fated to the span of twelve moons.
IX
THE GREAT PERIOD